PostNuke vs. Drupal

I've been using Content Management Systems (CMS) for nearly 5 years and counting. I've tried various systems such as PHPNuke, PostNuke (PN), Mambo, XOOPS, and so on. After trying so many systems my preference would definitely be PostNuke.

I've been using PostNuke since PN 0.726 till the current PN 0.761, and I've been rather satisfied with its flexibility. However, as technology advances my needs within a CMS also increases. The base features of PostNuke currently, are unable to reach my expectations of a complete CMS. To enhance the abilities of PostNuke, 3^rd Party modules have to be installed. You can program them yourself, or you search within the contributions. Here is where the problem comes about. As PostNuke is still in its development stage, it is constantly updated. Every update in version, a 3rd Party module gets outdated. If you upgrade to the latest version of PostNuke, you either update your 3^rd Party modules, or you lose them. Due to such causes many developers that contributed to enhancing PostNuke's features, drops their development.

Recently, I was introduced to Drupal, another CMS.

The attractiveness of Drupal is its base features. Drupal seems to be more stable in the sense of its development stage, module developers for Drupal's community seems more stable as well.

Let's do a short comparison on the modules contribution within PostNuke and Drupal's community.

'Shout Box'

For PostNuke, the only 'Shout Box' usable is 'TagIt'. After testing the module I realize that sometimes the messages aren't according to 'last post on top', the post seems to jump around. Another turn off is, unlike 'Tagboard', which allows you to type in your name, URL/email and message. In 'TagIt', there are only 2 fields, name and message, and if you allow guest to post, it assigns you a guest id which would appear something like 'Guest123'. I find this rather dumb, if you allow guest to post, wouldn't you want to know who the poster is?

For Drupal, 'Shout Box' is also a contributed module. In Drupal's 'Shout Box' module, problems encountered in PostNuke do not exist here.

'Comments'

The same problem with the fields appears in 'EZComments', a 'Comments' modules for PostNuke. The worst part is even if you enable the feature allowing guest to post, it still only allows registered users to do so.

Like previously, Drupal also doesn't have this problem.

'Archives'

For Drupal, this module is in its base features. However, for PostNuke, not only is it not a base feature, you're unable to find a contribution for it either. Previously in PN 0.726 a developer did create such a module, but not only was it not updated the previous developer closed its site and the module cannot be downloadable anymore.

'Video/Music Add-ons'

For Drupal, this module is well designed by one of the developers and place in its contribution section. However, for PostNuke, this add-on is badly designed and not easy to be found. Even Wordpress has a module for streaming of music and videos but PostNuke, sigh.

'Theme Engine'

However, superiority from PostNuke over Drupal would be its 'Theme Engine', 'Xanthia'. This theme engine is a base feature of PostNuke. It is well designed and user friendly to designer. You need not have profound knowledge of programming, all you need is simply HTML and you'd be able to freely customize your theme to your liking.

For Drupal, I cannot comment on it yet. As far as I've tested, the default style of coding for its themes, you'd need a good knowledge of PHP to be able to thoroughly customize a theme. However, I've not thoroughly gone through to see if there are modules to make theme design easier.

Conclusion

Just comparing PostNuke and Drupal, I would say that if you're looking for a freely customizable CMS, PostNuke is the choice for you. It's a CMS for geeks as many may describe it. However, if you were looking for something to just post your 'stuff', I would strongly recommend, Drupal.